Virtual reality technology reduces the pain and anxiety of children undergoing vein puncture: a meta-analysis

Background Pain management is an important part of nursing care for children. The objective of this study was to systematically assess the impact of virtual reality (VR) technology on alleviating the pain and anxiety experienced by children during venipuncture procedures. Methods This study searched Pubmed, Web of Sciences, Scopus, The Cochrane Library, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Embase, Medline, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang, Weipu and China biomedical databases on the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of virtual reality technology for relieving pain and anxiety associated with venous puncture for children up to July 6, 2024. Risk of bias tool recommended by Cochrane library was used to evaluate the RCT quality. RevMan 5.3 software was used for statistical analysis. Results A total of 10 RCTs involving 874 children were included. 429 children received VR intervention during vein puncture. VR was beneficial to reduce the children’s self-reported pain scores [SMD=-0.48, 95% CI (− 0.61, − 0.35)], children’s caregivers reported needle-related pain level [SMD=-0.93, 95% CI (-1.45, − 0.42)], children’s self-reported anxiety scores [SMD=-0.45, 95% CI (− 0.65, − 0.25)], children’s caregivers reported needle-related anxiety level [SMD=-0.47, 95% CI (− 0.73, − 0.21)]. Egger regression tests indicated that there were no publication biases in the synthesized outcomes (all P > 0.05). Conclusions VR technology has been shown to effectively mitigate the pain and anxiety experienced by children during venipuncture. Despite the positive findings, more research is needed to better understand the role of VR in children undergoing venipuncture.